


Notatus

by BoxOnTheNile



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Mentions of Female Cadash/Lace Harding, Multi, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-12
Updated: 2016-02-12
Packaged: 2018-05-19 23:46:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5985139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BoxOnTheNile/pseuds/BoxOnTheNile
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Notatus(Latin)- marked or distinguished</p><p> </p><p>  <i>It's the pretty ones you have to look out for</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Notatus

**Author's Note:**

> This has been sitting in my documents since last summer just take it.

_It's the pretty ones you have to look out for._  
✧✧✧

The words were scrawled across Dorian's collarbone at birth. His soulmark, the first words his soulmate would ever say to him, forever etched in his skin. He imagined hundreds of scenarios as a child- the words were written in Trade, not Tevene, so his soulmate was foreign. As an adolescent, he spent time in the market, lingering near Antivan and Orlaisian stalls in the hope of hearing those words. 

When he hit twenty, and everyone he knew had found their soulmates, he felt the hope start to fade. It was gone by twenty-five. 

When he met Felix, he fell in love. It was a soft, platonic love, but Dorian loved him nonetheless. When Felix was Blighted, Dorian cried for hours.  
✧✧✧

 

Redcliffe was awful. Fereldan was cold and rural, and the knowledge of what Alexius and Venatori were doing ate at him. He paced the chantry as he waited for the Herald and his men to arrive. His collarbone and the soulmark located there burned and itched. He paused to scratch at it, and a fade rift ripped open in front of him.

It was sudden, startling, and Dorian instinctively swung his staff to smack the nearest terror. The chantry doors swung open at that moment, allowing two dwarves, an elf, and- Dear Maker- a Qunari to join Dorian's plight. 

When the rift is sealed, Dorian heard the words marked on his skin.

"Careful, Boss. It's the pretty ones you have to look out for." 

Dorian's world tunnelled down to the words in his ears and the warmth on his clavicle. His soulmark, sensing it's match near, radiated heat through his bones.

A Qunari. He knew the rumors, that the Qun burned off the soulmarks of infants. A Qunari was his soulmate, and the blundering lummox wouldn't even know, not unless Dorian told him.

Anger welled up in his belly, hot and acidic. He bit down on the scathing words struggling to fall from his lips, turned to the dwarven Herald. He managed to explain things until Felix arrived.

When he looked at his soulmark that night, the black ink seemed to shimmer. He realized he hadn't spoken to the Qunari, not really, didn't know his name. He trailed his fingertips over the words and huffed an exhale. 

"Dorian?"

"I found him, Felix," Dorian sighed. "The Herald's Qunari. Can you imagine? My soulmate, a Qunari. Could be worse, I suppose. It could've been a woman."

"Dorian," Felix said softly. "I'm so sorry." Felix's own soulmate had been Soporati, and decorum demanded he marry elsewhere. He never did. "Are you still going to join the Inquisition?"

"Of course. I made a commitment, nothing so mundane will stop me from fulfilling it." He was still staring at his soulmark in the mirror. "Felix, what do I do? I hate him. I hate my soulmate." Felix stepped forward and wrapped his arms around Dorian. He cried.  
✧✧✧

"Boss told me you two saw some crazy shit in the future."

Dorian looked up from where he was picking at his breakfast. The Qunari- he now knew was named The Iron Bull- was staring at Dorian with his one steel grey eye like he could see Dorian's soul. Could he? crossed Dorian's mind with a thrill of panic. No, no, that was ridiculous. "Yes, well, she didn't lie, so there's no need to bother me."

"I wasn't verifying her story, I was checking on you. You went through that and immediately came here. How many times have you been threatened just this morning?"

"Six," Dorian answered calmly, "but I'm not helpless. I am a mage of considerable skill. You can take your concern elsewhere."

The Bull laughed. "Spitfire, aren't you, 'Vint? I like that."

The anger returned, colored with hurt. Tension seized his chest. "You can keep your attraction to yourself," Dorian snapped. "I assure you, I do not share it." He stood stiffly.

"Wait, Dorian, look." The Bull held up two placatory hands. "I wanted to make nice. I'm sorry if I offended you." Dorian found himself stunned. His soulmark pulsed warmly. Slowly, cautiously, he lowered himself back into his seat. "There. Healthy camaraderie between Inquisition soldiers." He scooped porridge into his mouth.

Dorian kept his eyes on his bowl. Why was he doing this to himself? Why was he sitting in the presence of a soulmate that could never return any _theoretical_ affections Dorian could possibly have. Maybe. 

Fuck. Dorian hated him, he did, but his soulmark grew warm and tingling when he was near. They were soulmates, finding him was supposed to be the hard part. Why did he stay? 

Breakfast was awkward, Bull trying to hold a conversation and Dorian stubbornly ignoring him. He fled the moment he could.  
✧✧✧

Fuck Redcliffe, fuck Tevinter, fuck everything.

Dorian was well on his way to roaring drunk; he had two bottles of Antivan red next to him and one half-empty in his hands. 

Skyhold was huge, none of its splendor lost in its disrepair. Dorian hated it.

If he was honest, he hated himself a little, too. Here he was, proof his country was the root of evil, proof his people had tried their damnedest to destroy the world, and Cadash had just smiled and told him it wasn’t his fault, that him wanting to save his country wasn’t a child’s dream-

It took every ounce of his self control not to set the room and everything in it on fire. As it was, mana sparked off his fingertips and between his teeth. 

“Much more of that and you’ll set yourself on fire, Dorian.”

And then there was the Bull. Infuriating, crude, savage-

_Patient and kind and gentle and_

Dorian gulped down the wine, hoping the warmth of the liquor would offset the heat of his soulmark. The Bull was right there, watching him, like a qunari in the library wasn’t unusual. He waited quietly, letting Dorian pull his thoughts together. “What do you want?” the mage finally snapped.

“Word is Corypheus is a 'Vint. Wanted to make sure-"

"Make sure I wasn't about to run off and join my countrymen? I assure you, I take my responsibilities seriously."

"That you weren't being threatened."

Dorian was shocked into silence. "I, well... Not explicitly. There was a dead fennec outside my room this morning, and someone smeared its blood on the door, but-"

"I'll have some of my boys stand guard for while."

"- _but I will be fine_. I am not a swooning maiden."

There was an angry flush to Dorian's cheeks, his collarbone pulsing with comfortable heat as his mark called to its match. It doesn't exist, he thought harshly. It doesn't exist, so get used to loneliness, Dorian, because there's no soulmate looking for you.

"Hey." A broad thumb swiped across Dorian's cheekbone, wiping away tears. "Angry crier, or upset?"

"Both," and maybe he was drunker than he thought, because he was leaning into that hand. "No one wants me here, no one wants me back home. I'm waiting for a knife in the back, half expecting you to be behind it."

"Ever used that magic of yours to burn down a dormitory full of kids?"

"No."

"Than don't worry about me. Lot of other people need a knife in the back first. Can't speak for anyone else, though."

"Oh good. The list of my potential murderers is down one." He lifted a hand to scratch at his collarbone.

"You do that a lot." 

"Huh?"

"Scratch your shoulder. Got a scar there? Some illness we gotta worry about? Soulmark?"

"The latter," Dorian sighed, and Bull's face went blank.

"You only scratch it when I'm around."

"The only time you can see me scratch it is when you're around. Leave me be, Iron Bull." Dorian didn't look up, but he felt the heat from his soulmark fade.  
✧✧✧

Cadash came flouncing into Dorian's niche in the library. "Little birdy told me you're sulking."

Dorian scoffed. "Does this birdy have three foot horns?"

"It might. Wanna tell me why?"

"Qunari," Dorian spat sharply into the bookcase, "do not have soulmarks."

"Oh fuck me," Cadash said. "Dorian, I-"

"If you say you're sorry I will set you on fire. I have known my whole life I would not marry my soulmate. This makes it easier."

"No it doesn't."

"No," Dorian sighed, "it doesn't. I will be fine, Inquisitor. It just... Hurts."

Cadash touched her thigh, where Lace Harding's words curled around it like a garter. "Yeah. It's hard enough being Marked to a surfacer. I can't imagine... I have a bottle of dwarven whiskey in my room."

"Oh Maker please."

He woke up on Cadash's sofa the following morning with a blinding headache. The dwarf herself was staggering toward her large windows, naked and swearing. She noticed him and squinted. "Do I need to be less naked?"

"Too female for me," Dorian slurred, then, "fuck, I mean-"

"Good. You have too much dick for my tastes anyway. I got a private bath. Way too big for one dwarf. Want in?"

She pointedly did not look at his soulmark after a cursory glance revealed its location. She did, however, wash his hair.

"So," she said, rinsing soap from Dorian’s hair, “what’re we gonna do?”

“Nothing, Dorian answered primly. “There’s nothing that needs doing. I have known since Redcliffe and managed. Not many Alti marry their Marked.”

“Do you want me to make it so I don’t bring you together?”

“Do what you feel is right, Malika. I will not stop you.”

“Do you hate him?” Her voice was soft.

Did he? In the beginning, maybe, but Dorian had never been good at hating. It was exhausting, and the last time he’d held on to that kind of anger… Well, the scars he’d given himself were mostly faded now. “It would be easier if I did.”  
✧✧✧

Dorian staggered to lean against the cliff face, hand curled around the crossbow bolt in his shoulder. He waved a hand to cast a barrier on Cassandra and Bull as Cadash fired an arrow at the archer that wounded Dorian. “You okay, magey?”

“Fine, my dear dwarf. Just have to cast without my staff.” A flick of his wrist raised a wall of flame on a lurking rogue. “A bit tiring is all.”

Cassandra drove her sword into the last of the raiders and turned to Dorian and the Inquisitor. “We have a few rudimentary supplies. We should bandage that and head for the nearest camp. Unless you can heal it?”

Dorian shook his head. “Healing and Necromancy don’t lend well to each other. I can heal, but it takes more mana than I have and focus I can’t muster at the moment.” He swayed. “Oh. This bolt may be poisoned. _Kaffas._ ” He pitched forward, and would have fallen face-first into the sand if the Bull had not caught him. 

“Whoa there. Let’s get that bolt out and bandaged. I’ve got a healing potion left.” One broad hand moved to remove his shirt, but Dorian pushed the hand away. His head felt heavy and blurred, but he knew the Bull shouldn’t see his shoulder. “C’mon, ‘Vint, let me see.” And Dorian’s shirt was pulled over his head. “Oh.”

“Fuck me sideways with a rusty fork,” Cadash spat. “Cass, handle Dorian. Bull, come with me.”

Smaller hands traced where the bolt entered Dorian’s flesh. “Your soulmark… The Bull?”

“Yeah.” Dorian hissed in pain as Cassandra jostled the bolt. She clicked her tongue, placed one of her gloves between Dorian’s teeth, and yanked out the crossbow bolt. Dorian blacked out for a moment. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

“I apologize,” Cassandra said as she bandaged his wound. “I do not believe the poison is lethal, simply disorienting.” She slid an arm around Dorian’s waist. “Come, lean on me. There is camp not far from here.”

“Cadash?” 

“Took the Bull elsewhere. He was… shocked. He… I believe he reached to touch where his soulmark had been.”

“Where?” It was stupid, but he had to know. Had to know where his one word, _Plane_ , had lain on the Bull’s skin.

Cassandra seemed to understand, because she told him. “Left side, along the third rib. There was a scar there. Not very big. Perhaps one or two words-”

“One,” Dorian said. “Just one.” He laughed, a short, mirthless sound. "Maker help me, my Marked can't even look at me." He dropped his head onto Cassandra’s shoulder and let her guide him back to the camp.

The healers were cleaning the wound and coaxing sips of an antidote into the mage when Cadash and the Iron Bull return. The qunari walked over and sat by Dorian, blatantly staring at the words on his collarbone.

“So,” he started awkwardly, “that explains a lot.” The Bull swallowed. “I… don’t understand this, but the boss explained that it’s a pretty big deal.”

“Huge,” Harding commented as she passed on her way to Cadash.

“Yeah. So… Uh… What did it say? My Mark, that is.”

“ _Plane_. Means clearly or quite.”

“I called you pretty and you said ‘of course.’ Why am I not surprised?” Bull needled. “I suppose I shouldn’t be. You’re fated to be mine.”

“What about the Qun?” Dorian asked. The healers had moved on, leaving Dorian alone with the Bull.

“What they don’t know won’t hurt them. The Qun says I’m not supposed to want, but I do.” He rested a fingertip on the _It’s_ peeking out from under the bandage. He then guided Dorian’s uninjured hand to the scar on his side, and Dorian traced the word that sat there once.


End file.
